Now what?

As the military truck left the station I kept asking myself, what are you gonna do Cantina? What are you gonna do now? The morning seemed tranquil through the barred bus window. People went on about their business as usual. The bitter smell of onion sweat sat beside me like a prisoner. Like a cell mate.
Once inside the holding cell I met an African girl named Smile. And so she did. She smiled about everything. She was the first one to sit beside me and ask my name. Hi, I’m Smile. Your name? Shaula, I said. I couldn’t stand myself right then. I felt so sorry for myself, if I saw myself on the street, I’d kick my own ass.
Smile was kind and pretty, she looked like she just came from the salon, she was so well dressed. I asked her if she had just been arrested, No, she said smiling. Of course. I have been here 6 months. Wow. Jail does a body good girl. You look fantastic. She smiled again. I look like shit and I’ve just been to the holding cells so far. She sported a red pachmina and some slender jeans. Her nails were done, her eyebrows waxed and she smelled like jasmin.
What was going on? Was I being taken to a resort of sorts?
Anyway, Smile asked me what I was arrested for. I said, nothing. I’m innocent. It’s complicated. I wasn’t about to get into the whole numeric list bullshit. Only I get arrested half way around the world for a bunch of virtual numbers. Bullshit.
Shit. Anyway, she went on and smiled again and said; Oh you’re innocent too? Welcome. We’re all innocent in here!
I’m not sure if she was being sarcastic, as her smile was so fucking genuine, I couldn’t tell. I was being serious. I didn’t fucking do anything. That bitter bitch Evergreen, and her cronies, did me in. Bitch.
But you can’t really trust anyone in jail. I mean, they’re in jail. You know what I mean? So I opted for the easy answer, It’s complicated Smile, it’s just complicated.
She went on and believed me with no reservations. How else could a person called Smile possibily react?
Anyway, I walked into the prison area and innocently asked what seemed to be a fat Indian man, “Whats in there?”
He replied in a strikingly femenin sweet voice, Prisoners.
Oh. Yeah. I’m in prison aren’t I? I realized I was inside now.
Dr. Bhavna with her manly looks and femenin ways took one look at me and came closer, she was fat, kind and innocent.
“Hi.” She said warmly. “And you are here for stealing right?” How the hell did she know what I was accused of?
I honestly had no idea what I was there for exactly, as my "charges" were never read to me or discussed entirely.
I was confused and astonished, I was actually in an indian jail and I was in for stealing?
The following hours were spent figuring out where I was gonna spend my next 12 hours at, was I gonna be locked up with 80 Indian inmates, or was I gonna be put ina smaller cell in a safer enrvironment? I asked Bhavna, "Where is the "Foreigner" area. It was supposed to be like a VIP room or something. Separated from general population, this is what I was told. And there's a phone so I can make phone calls yes? " She stared at me kindly and suddenly burst out in laughter and started rambling on in Hindi. Aaaaaajajajajahahaha Tike tike,, mukty jonji nutty wahtsa...blah blah....
Everyone around me started laughing and pointing. I mean, I knew I was funny but I didn't think I had said anything funny in a long while. Yes, Cantina they're laughing at you. Gen pop it is baby. get used to it. So I was thrown in to a cell with about 79 Indian women. We all were given a space on the floor defined by the width of our blankets. I was given an aluminum plate and a cup. A blanket that smelled like dust and a plastic spoon. No forks or knives, not even a spork.
I spent almost the entire night trying to understand why all my "cellmates" were surrounding me touching my hair, caressing my hand, hugging me. It got weird. Like I was some weird Toltec idol. Until toltec idol could hold no more her eyes open. I fell asleep and went into my new favorite place, Dreamland. I woke up smiling, who knows what I was dreaming about but it was pleasant.....until I woke up to Indian women screaming and pulling each other's hair in a fight. Oh yeah man. My first jail fight, live! Suddenly, in the midst of the fighting the guard came up to the cell door and banged her bamboo stick on the bars making an unbearable sound that broke the monkey fighting that was going on. It was weird. I felt like I was in a movie or a zoo. Anyway, up to the gate came my savior, I didn't know her but Smile, my beautiful African friend had told my new African friend "Fatima" about my whereabouts. Apparently Fatima knew about the monkey cell and their weird obsession with toltec idols so she decided to come get me out of there and put me in a safer place.
That same day I was put ina smaller cell with 2 Chinese roommates. I call them Roommates, Hui and Wei.
One of them barely spoke English and the other one barely spoke Mandarin. We were in for quite a ride.
Hui was from China and was studying college in Paris, she was arrested in new Delhi for traveling with a person who had a fake visa and passport, Wei. They were kind of like Fuckme and Fuckyou from the Austin Powers movies.
Wei, whom had gotten a fake visa so she could get to her cousin in Paris who was a cook, had no idea how grave of a siuation she had gotten herself into. She was confident they’d be out in a jiffy. Not the case. Convicton for fake paperwork was easy three years and she had a fake visa AND passport. They were fucked, and so was I.
I had no proof of what I was arguing being true. It was all digital talk in an analog world. The file, the numeric list, the cut list…they were all lost causes. I had been put in jail beause some Indian assholes with too much money and power had nothing better to do with their lives, that was the truth.

Alone

The ant trail crossed through the dining room into the living room and went up the couches leg crossing over to the wall behind Judge Sandeep's head. I'm guessing his name was Sandeep something or other, everyone in India is named Sandeep.
So judge Sandeep, wearing his white Gepeto pajama sat on his red velvet and gold Louis XV couch and stared profoundly at my eyes. He looked me up and down and took a deep breath as he grabbed his pen and signed the arrest order.
"Tomorrow at 600 hours the accused will be remanded to Tihar Prison until further action can be taken on their case. I am not the appropriate judge to form an opinion on this matter." "Here you go", he said, as he handed over the folder to the arresting police officer.
"Hijole mija...." Were the famous last words I heard from the Mexican consul. I was dragged out of what I now refer to as "The Ant palace" by two police officers. I was put in the back of a police car. Firecrackers were going off like it was the fourth of July. The police car dodged every single explosion on the road to the holding cells at Defence Colony police station.
I was in a dream, I couldn't tell the difference between reality and imagination. My mind was confused, was this really happening to me? I was going to jail. Shit.
When we finally arrived at the holding cells, a police woman wearing a nice pink dress, came up to me and held my hand.
She guided me this way up to a military truck which then took us both to another station far and away. It seemed like and old abandoned jail in the middle of nowhere. My lips were swelling like Angelina for no apparent reason. I think I was so nervous I ate the top layer of my mouth without noticing. By the time they locked me up in my stinky cement jail cell my lips had started bleeding. Mosquitoes swarmed all around my head like that character in the peanuts cartoon. As a welcome gift I got a blanket just like his too, all peed on and stiff from old vomit and junk. It was a freezing cold night I spent there wondering what my life was gonna be like in that Indian prison. I tried to sleep but the blood dripping from my lips kept waking me up. The smell coming from the hole in the ground they call toilet, was more than I could bare. I threw up in it and then proceeded to vomit again from smelling the mix of my own puke and the old crap that floated in the hole.
This was me, staring into a hole full of shit, crying, bleeding and puking. Wondering what the fuck I had gotten myself into.
Wondering if It was real or if it would all be over in the morning like a bad dream. I fell asleep crying curled up in the cold concrete, covered by a filthy blanket and the mosquito swarm. I have to thank them for keeping me warm that night. Morning came around, the sound of crows woke me up. As I woke and looked around in disbelief I thought; shit, I'm still here. It's real. I'm in jail in India. The nice woman in the pink dress, came into my cell and gently held my hand, helped me get up and walked me back to the military truck in the parking lot. The truck took off and took me to my final stop before the real deal. At this stop I met another Sandeep that offered me some chai. Things started looking up. I got warm chai for breakfast! I sat down in his office and tried to talk to him, he suggested that in India, things could be done a different way. If I knew what he meant. Bells went off, this sounded awfully familiar. I was from Mexico, land of the bribe. I had bribed my first cop at the age of 14. I knew exactly what he meant. But did he mean what I thought he meant? If not I could be in deeper shit than I already was. I had to be careful. I had to wait until he asked and until he told me how to go about it without telling me straight on. I had to wait. I knew we hadn't done anything that broke any laws. I knew we were innocent of their accusations. But I also knew the third world, and the fact that we looked like and ATM machine to most people in that country didn't help our case. The fact that we lived in Los Angeles and were working on a film, made us look like walking dollar signs to everyone. Nobody understood we were broke. My Gucci leather bag didn't help my "I'm broke" argument either. The west is strange like that, someone can be flat broke and still be sporting a Gucci bag with no money in it. That's just how we roll. How do I explain this to an indian that makes maybe 3 dollars a day salary?
I started to understand I was in for the ride of my life. I was entering a whole new dimension where the things that mattered to me didn't matter to anybody. I was entering the dimension of being human. I was leaving behind my name, my parents, my education, my knowledge. I was leaving me behind to go find myself again. I was alone, truly alone for the first time in my life.